;)
Tuesday
May282013
The Commentariat -- May 29, 2013
Gov. Christie & President Obama spoke at the Jersey Shore yesterday:
... "One and Done." Christie bests Obama without even trying:
... Michael Shear of the New York Times reports on the Obama-Christie buddy events.
... AND it takes the genius of Rush Limbaugh to see the recovery effort engineered by the federal & state governments as a "master-servant" relationship between Obama & Christie. Notice how Rush makes the point that he's not going to say "master-slave." Rush is so fucking evolved:
Maureen Dowd reproduces her "Obama Is Aloof" column, this time getting Jonathan Alter to write it for her. Dowd & Alter wonder if it's too late for Obama to learn to spend quality-time with Louis Gohmert & Tailgunner Ted so he can be famous for something besides being the first African-American president.
David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to the campaign of abortion opponents to 'defund' Planned Parenthood. Without comment, the justices turned away Indiana's defense of a 2011 law that would ban all Medicaid funds to an organization such as Planned Parenthood whose work includes performing abortions. The high court let stand decisions by a federal judge in Indiana and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that blocked the measure from taking effect. The 'defunding law excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients' statutory right to obtain medical care from the qualified provider of their choice,' Judge Diane Sykes said last year for the 7th Circuit." ...
... Adam Liptak of the Times reports on the decisions.
New York Times Editors: "On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down two important criminal procedures decisions, both allowing defendants to seek habeas corpus review of their convictions in federal court. The 5-to-4 majority, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court's four moderate liberals, reached the right result in each case. But, in a larger sense, the two decisions show how much the scope of habeas review has been curtailed by the Supreme Court in the last three decades, so that it now must work around earlier precedents to avoid doing injustice.... The ... cases show how heavily engaged the court has gotten in the regulation of criminal justice. Even when the court does the right thing, as it did in these two cases, it often appears to be finding exceptions to harsh rules that it created or upheld in earlier cases."
Republicans Are Outraged Obama Is Doing His Job. Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: "Republican senators are fuming about President Barack Obama's attempt to fill empty seats on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, charging him with 'court-packing' and alleging that his push to confirm nominees is all politics. But not only is Obama not 'court-packing' -- a term describing an attempt to add judges to a court with the goal of shifting the balance, not filling existing vacancies -- but Republicans' efforts to prevent Obama from appointing judges amount to their own attempt to tip the scales in their favor. What's more, some of the GOP senators trying to prevent his nominees from advancing previously voted to fill the court when there was a Republican in the White House."
Charles Pierce: "I don't believe there ever has been a time like this in our history.... Right now, we have a polarization based on the fact that an uncontrollable faction of one of our two political parties -- a faction with its own sources of money and power that exist outside conventional political accountability -- has decided that the only thing that the national government should do is nothing, a faction that is perfectly situated to make that at least part of a political reality, and a faction that is growing even faster out in the states than it is in Washington." ...
... Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: the GOP's nihilistic approach to government is hurting even the interests of groups that normally align with Republicans. ...
... What's an Idle Congressman to Do? -- Issue Subpoenas! Ginger Gibson of Politico: "Rep. Darrell Issa issued a subpoena on Tuesday demanding more documents from the State Department for records related to the controversial talking points used in the days after the attack on the Benghazi consulate."
When Rigid Ideologies Clash -- Just Pretend They Don't. David Nather of Politico: "Members of a House immigration group are considering a rule that would force immigrants to buy their own health insurance while they wait for citizenship. The Republicans and other conservatives say their rule wouldn't be like Obamacare's at all. Their argument: It's simply fair to ask immigrants to show they won't be a drain on the system before getting full citizenship. Some conservative groups that support immigration reform think the contradiction is so glaring -- no mandate for citizens, but one for immigrants -- that Republicans should rethink their position. 'That is virtually the opposite of the main point they made against Obamacare,' said Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute.... Under the health care law, illegal immigrants are not entitled to purchase plans in the exchanges and they aren't eligible for subsidies."
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: in the Senate, the Gang of Eight has successfully fought off ultra-conservatives' attempts to derail or substantially weaken the immigration reform bill. (Nakamura doesn't write anything about the GOP's success in forcing Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) to withdraw his amendment extending the law to gay immigrants.)
** Walter Pincus of the Washington Post: "I believe the First Amendment covers the right to publish information, but it does not grant blanket immunity for how that information is gathered. When First Amendment advocates say [James] Rosen [of Fox "News"] was 'falsely' characterized as a co-conspirator, they do not understand the law. When others claim this investigation is 'intimidating a growing number of government sources,' they don't understand history. The person or persons who told the Associated Press about the CIA operation that infiltrated al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and [Stephen Jin-Woo] Kim -- or someone else -- who informed Rosen about North Korea, were not whistleblowers exposing government misdeeds. They harmed national security and broke the law."
Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department's (DOJ) surveillance of reporters.... 'In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material -- this is not something I've ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy,' Holder said during the hearing. However, NBC News reported the following week that Holder personally approved a search warrant that labeled Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen a co-conspirator in a national security leaks case." ...
... Philip Bump of the Atlantic: "Justice ... acknowledged that Holder had been involved in the Rosen case -- officially, U.S. vs. Kim, after Rosen's alleged source for the leak, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim.... Rusty Hardin, a Houston-based attorney ... [who] represented Roger Clemens when the pitcher faced perjury allegations after testifying on the Hill..., was blunt. 'Do we really believe seriously that the Attorney General is going to sit up there in a public hearing with the intent to obstruct justice? Really? Seriously? Give me a friggin' break.' The only people who might think so, he said, were 'insane partisans.'" ...
... Winger Rich Lowry, winger editor of the winger National Review, writes a funny piece titled "Being Eric Holder."
Hope Yen of the AP: "America's working mothers are now the primary breadwinners in a record 40 percent of households with children -- a milestone in the changing face of modern families, up from just 11 percent in 1960. The findings by the Pew Research Center, released Wednesday, highlight the growing influence of 'breadwinner moms' who keep their families afloat financially. While most are headed by single mothers, a growing number are families with married mothers who bring in more income than their husbands."
"Taxing the Rich." Paul Krugman: "... over the past three decades we've seen a soaring share of income going to the very top of the income distribution ... even as tax rates on high incomes have fallen sharply, with the recent Obama increases clawing back only a fraction of the previous cuts.... If we choose to raise less revenue from the rich than we can without hurting the economy, we will be forced either to raise more taxes from or provide fewer valuable services to everyone else." With a chart.
Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Paul Volcker ... plans to begin a foundation called the Volcker Alliance, aimed at improving how government works at the local, state and federal levels."
Congressional Race
** Gerry Mullany of the New York Times: "Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who made an ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress next year. She made the announcement just six months after being re-elected in what was her most challenging Congressional campaign since she was first elected to the House in 2006. Her announcement also comes as her former presidential campaign faces inquiries into its fund-raising activities.... She also said she expected 'the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin' on her decision...." ...
... CW: huh. How is it that god answered my prayers & has been pretty much ignoring Bachmann's prayers to tank ObamaCare? I should ask Pat Robertson if that means I'm a better Christian than Bachmann, which would be a trick because I'm not a Christian. Worth noting: Mullany completely ignores Bachmann's exhortations that her decision has nothing to do with the close race she won last November or with the ethics committee inquiry. I guess Mullany is a "mainstream liberal media" hack. ...
... The Star-Tribune story, which includes Bachmann's announcement video, is here.
Local News
Washington Post Editors: "Robert F. McDonnell took office admirably determined to change a scandalously antiquated system by which the state has deprived several hundred thousand felons of their voting rights -- permanently. To his credit, he's done a better job than any of his predecessors at restoring the vote for former offenders who have served their sentences.... The essential problem is a provision in the state's constitution, reaffirmed by racist lawmakers more than a century ago, that deprives felons of the vote unless their rights are individually restored by the governor. Mr. McDonnell (R) has supported a change in the constitution, and so has the state Senate. But they’ve been blocked by Republicans in the House of Delegates, who may fear an infusion of African American voters.... The result is that more than 7 percent of the state's voting-age population is ineligible to vote, even though most of them have already served their sentences. The racial imbalance is appalling. Twenty percent of the state's voting-age population of African Americans, and about a third of its black males, is ineligible to vote." [Emphasis added.]
Texas Legislature, Governor, Cut Off Their Noses to Spite Texans. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "1.5 million low-income Texans may go without health care coverage after lawmakers in the state voted against expanding Medicaid using $100 billion in federal funds offered under President Obama's health care law.... 'Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into this fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system,' [Gov. Rick] Perry said. The decision means a loss of approximately $7 billion for Texas hospitals, which comes on top of the $700 million a year reduction in Medicaid payments from state budget shortfalls and cuts under sequestration." As a result of the decision, Texas's working poor also will lose out on federal tax credits for purchasing health insurance. "Texas will continue paying for the taxes that pay for Medicaid expansion but will be sending those dollars (and benefits) to other states." CW: No master-servant relationship here! ...
... Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "Unlike [Gov. Jan] Brewer [RTP-Az.], Mr. Perry has made the ideologically consistent choice rather than the responsible one." ...
... Ed Kilgore: "... quite a few (including most of the South) [are] just flat out refusing to do anything for people with incomes under the federal poverty line. And that creates a very large 'coverage gap,' leaving an estimated 5.7 million folk who don't qualify for Medicaid or for the Obamacare health exchange subsidies. While this coverage gap is reminiscent (though much larger and more devastating to those affected) of the 'doughnut hole' that existed in Medicare Part D before the Affordable Care Act began closing it, we don't have a name for it just yet. I'd suggest the 'wingnut hole.'"
Tom Canavan of the AP: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he has 'absolute confidence' in the president of Rutgers University even as some lawmakers have called for Robert Barchi to step down amid a string of embarrassing revelations for the university's athletic department. Christie said he doesn't want to micromanage the university and won't say whether incoming athletic director Julie Hermann should start at the school as scheduled on June 17. 'Not my call,' he said Tuesday during his monthly call-in show on TownSquare Media." The Star-Ledger story is here.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "A Chechen man who was fatally shot by an FBI agent last week during an interview about one of the Boston bombing suspects was unarmed, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. An air of mystery has surrounded the FBI shooting of Ibragim Todashev, 27, since it occurred in Todashev's apartment early on the morning of May 22."
New York Times: "In a shock to humanitarian aid workers, suicide bombers in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday assaulted the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, an organization that has worked in the country for more than 30 years without suffering a concerted attack and has received praise from all sides."
New York Times: "The Swiss government is considering a proposal to disclose bank client names and pay a multibillion-dollar fine to the United States to help resolve a long-running dispute between the two countries over the handling of tax-evasion cases, American and Swiss sources briefed on the matter said on Tuesday. The fine, which could reach at least $7 billion to $10 billion according to these people, could be paid in part by the Swiss government, which would then seek reimbursement from the banks."
Reuters: "Accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan will ask a U.S. military court on Wednesday to rule he can represent himself at his trial this summer which could bring the death penalty on charges he killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage. Jury selection in Hasan's military trial at Fort Hood was delayed until next week after he asked the judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, to let him fire his lawyers and represent himself."
AP: " Moscow's highest court has rejected an appeal by punk group Pussy Riot against their sentence for a protest against Vladimir Putin."
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Reader Comments (14)
Best news ever! The pretty, crazy lady will NOT be seeking reelection. Yes, Marie, the gods have made good on this one and it may just have been a stroke of luck that the Harpies, those vicious winged beings, jealous of Bachmann's chicanery, had a hand (claw) in this. Like them when she steps down she will leave a lingering odor behind, not at all pleasant.
And hooray for Walter Pincus for making sense––finally!
Isn't it embarrassing for Maureen to once again discuss Obama's lack of this and that? This time with the help of Alter who used to slobber all over himself praising the President, especially after his, (Alter's) first book about Obama came out. What's with these people that seem to need such love and attention from a man who has the world on his plate? Once upon a time ago I remember hearing that Obama should go on the road more––get out among the folks––give them the messages in person. Now we hear just the opposite and from someone like Dole who appears to be one of our last living REAL Republicans, but in his hay day was hardly what one could call a hail fellow farewell kind of guy. It puzzles me that Maureen is offered such an array of wackadoos to write about, but she seems obsessed with Obama––I wonder why.
@PD Pepe: I expect the real reason Bachmann is calling it quits is that gay marriage just became legal in Minnesota, freeing up Bachmann's husband to dump her & marry his long-time lover. Repeatedly lying to the American public & stiffing your campaign staff might be okay in Bachmann's book, but losing your husband to another man -- that's a scandal too far for La Bachmann.
Marie
P.S. For those of you who occasionally take me literally, I have no idea what the Bachmanns' marital plans are (but I do have a feeling god is going to tell them to go their separate ways).
PD,
So we won't have Bachmann to kick around anymore, eh? Too bad. She was such a fun date, except for those bug eyes, the fantasy land stuff, the insufferable moralizing, the tanked-up teabaggery, oh, and the illegal dealings in her run to rule the world.
Hey, can you run for office from prison?
That investigation must be on to something pretty big for someone with Bachmann's ambition and ego to throw in the towel. There's gotta be something in the works. Maybe a work release program?
But nah, politicians like Bachmann don't do time. And you know that whatever happens it will be the fault of liberal baby killers and not her own hubris and terrible, bad, awful management skills (which, of course, never seemed to matter in her role of taking up space in congress).
As for Dowd, she's been relegated to the remainder bin with all those other Times columnists I hardly ever read anymore--Friedman, Brooks, Douthat, Keller--who take up valuable commentariat real estate and whose work is repetitive, puerile, half-baked, and god-awful boring. And did I say repetitive?
Christ, there must be scores, hundreds of thoughtful writers who can comment on more important things than 1.) how smart they are, 2.) how hippies ruined everything, 3.) how we should all say our prayers every night, 4.) how I'm still important!, and 5.) how the president should listen to my advice, otherwise I'll make fun of him.
Seriously? I'd rather read a Pee Wee Herman dissertation on pocket pool than the same ol', same ol' every freakin' day from these losers.
Dowd used to come up with something worthwhile now and then, often enough that you might put up with her dreadful exercises in name dropping and snark. But that was years ago, now that I think of it. She's just mailing it in now. Unless like today when she lets someone else mail it in.
@Akhilleus: Yes you can run for office from prison. Eugene Debs did it during WWI.
Barbarossa,
Thanks. It was a bit of a rhetorical question. I knew about Debs and I seem to recall Boston Mayor James Michael Curley running for office (and winning) while in prison, and there may be plenty more examples.
I think Bachmann might look kinda cute in a day-glo orange jump suit, though, don't you? Might spiff up her campaign literature, although the big black "DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS" plastered across the back might be a bit off-putting.
Then again, Marie might have a point about an upcoming marital split. Marcus may already be considering up his prospects. After all, it seems like he must spend an inordinate amount of time with young (available!) gay men. He may already have one lucky chap in mind. Do you think they'll be married in a church? Michele could Skype in from her cell--the warden might let her wear something a bit more fashionable for the occasion--wishing them both well on their trip to hell.
What fun!
OR, maybe Michele has her faraway eyes on Al Franken's Senate seat. That would leave one of the wingnuttiest, dumbest members of Congress running against one of the most progressive, smartest members of the Senate. I would hope in a Franken v. Bachmann contest, Minnesotans would know what to do. But who knows?
Marie
Franken v. Bachmann.....just imagine the debates!
It should be a slam dunk sort of affair, but then again, Minnesota borders Wisconsin. What if whatever has infected the Badger State bleeds over the line (along with mountains of Koch Cash)?
Hey, maybe Bachmann would ask Scott Walker to come campaign for her (she being in prison and all). That way fans of er, distinctive peepers wouldn't be disappointed.
Re: I got a thought that I need help with; I'm thinking that there is a correlation between the above mentioned articles from Ms. Dowd and Charlie Pierce. Ms Dowd doesn't get that Washington DC is no longer the place of power that it was. Mr. Pierce understands that political power is now coming from moneyed sources that no longer give a fuck about having lunch with the President. Ms. Dowd because she is in the eye of the storm has not realized that the power of Washington is greatly reduced in these days of special interest groups. Mr. Pierce states most of the Right is in Washington to stop the government from functioning. Ms. Dowd is living in the past. The rich have circumvented the political process that Ms. Dowd is wistfully referring to. Mr Pierce knows that more that half of the politicians are serving a different master than Us.
I know most of the comment writers here could flesh this idea of mine out; this was written on lunch break but thought about most of the morning. Anybody agree?
I hope Ms Bachmann finds her soul mate and cell mate on the same day.
JJG,
I think you've done an estimable job of limning the limits of Dowd's lapidarian loop de loops.
Most of those unable to sniff out shifts in the paradigm are lucky to spare-a-dime. Unlike the Do of Mo, they aren't paid for dreck no matter what.
I was thinking Bachmann is dreaming about all that ca$h money she's about to rake in with her hubby's zombie homo business. What with all the Minnesowtans having second thoughts about their sexuality now that same sex couples will be kissing and holding hands in public. Before it must've been hard targeting their clientele and strapping them to the brainwashing chair but now they're gonna have lines out the door.
Doing God's work, turning gay hearts straight while makin' Benjamins. She's got priorities people!
Marcus will never give up his day (night?) job since there's lots of $$$
to be had from Medicare & Medicaid (sure I read this somewhere in
one of the gay rags about his scam) so Crazy Eyes won't have to worry about divorce because God doesn't like divorce. Marriage is
between a man & a woman and forever!!! Waiting for my partner to
get home from his door to door questionaire, ringing doorbells and
asking a simple question: "How does same sex marriage threaten
your opposite sex marriage?". So far there has been no sensible
answer, like, "It's in the bible", or "my minister says so", or "
didn't W. pass a law about that?" Not a lot of deep thinkers in the
'hood.
Gun control: Some states forge ahead.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/ca-senate-approves-8-bills-to-regulate-guns.html
And this on LGBT rights.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/05/boy-scouts-targeted-by-state-senate.html